http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brown-center-chalkboard/posts/2016/07/20-high-school-courses-college-performance-ferenstein-hershbein

“First, policymakers need to explicitly link high school and college performance. National assessments need to follow students through college graduation to understand what works–and what does not–over the long term. To date, many standardized tests (including international assessments) simply assume that performance in high school necessarily predicts later success, without revealing how students use such knowledge and skills in college classes or to finish their degree.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-36836599

Teachers and academics in the UK and the US have taken to Twitter to thank Donald Trump’s wife for providing the perfect material to teach their students what plagiarism is and why it is wrong.

Eric is a current MPA student!

http://aspahr.org/2016/05/13/2016-aspa-hampton-roads-awards-luncheon/

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/11/americas-shrinking-middle-class-a-close-look-at-changes-within-metropolitan-areas/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=1173200409-Weekly_May_12_20165_12_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-1173200409-399726609

The American middle class is losing ground in metropolitan areas across the country, affecting communities from Boston to Seattle and from Dallas to Milwaukee. From 2000 to 2014 the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas examined in a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. The decrease in the middle-class share was often substantial, measuring 6 percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas, compared with a 4-point drop nationally.

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2016/05/avoiding-plagiarism.html

Computerization has made it easy to cut-and-paste the words of others. It has also made it easy to detect when plagiarism has occurred. You can avoid allegations of plagiarism through awareness and honest effort.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/09/facebook-twitter-mobile-news/

Facebook sends by far the most mobile readers to news sites of any social media site, while Twitter mobile users spend more engaged time with news content, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of audience behavior metrics from 30 news sites. This gap holds true for both longer and shorter news articles.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/why-kids-should-use-their-fingers-in-math-class/478053/

Some scholars note that it will be those who have developed visual thinking who will be “at the top of the class” in the world’s new high-tech workplace that increasingly draws upon visualization technologies and techniques, in business, technology, art, and science. Work on mathematics draws from different areas of the brain and students need to be strong with visuals, numbers, symbols and words—but schools are not encouraging this broad development in mathematics now. This is not because of a lack of research knowledge on the best ways to teach and learn mathematics, it is because that knowledge has not been communicated in accessible forms to teachers. Research on the brain is often among the most impenetrable for a lay audience but the knowledge that is being produced by neuroscientists, if communicated well, may be the spark that finally ignites productive change in mathematics classrooms and homes across the country.

Good stuff… but may be slightly offensive to some!

https://youtu.be/0Rnq1NpHdmw

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2016/05/05/early-research-on-police-body-cameras-supports-use/

The first experimental evidence concerning use-of-force comes from a large study in the Rialto, California Police Department, and the results should encourage advocates of body cameras. The study randomly assigned particular police shifts to wear body cameras (the “treatment”). Police shifts in the treatment condition are associated with reduced use-of-force and citizen complaints against the police were significantly reduced. Shifts in the control condition, in contrast, saw roughly twice as much use-of-force as the treatment condition.

The research so far suggests that body cameras are a promising way to reduce unnecessary use of force.

Interesting (fascinating!) stuff about people…

http://www.fastcompany.com/3059450/netflix-knows-which-pictures-youll-click-on-and-why